


To Tell Your Story, To Hear Your Life

by nonbinarycoded



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: I'll add them as they appear - Freeform, there will be more characters as chapters continue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 23:19:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6587152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonbinarycoded/pseuds/nonbinarycoded
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ghanoush wants to hear the life stories of some of Chorus' most notable soldiers, and some of the less notable ones as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Tell Your Story, To Hear Your Life

**Author's Note:**

> As Ghanoush interviews more characters they'll be added to the tags list. I've actually written Bitters' backstory before, in [Bombs Don't Whistle.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6158974)

Ghanoush’s helmet hit Bitters’ cot with a soft thunk, rustling in the sheets as Ghanoush shifted it to frame Bitters perfectly in the camera. Bitters glared between the camera and Ghanoush, not quite sure where to focus his annoyance.

“Antoine Bitters! Just who I was looking for.”

“Okay, first, if you're gonna say my first name like you're making fun of it, don't say my first name. Second, what the hell is this about-- don't sit on my cot.”

Ghanoush sat. “I want you to tell me your story.”

“...What?”

“I want you to tell me your story,” Ghanoush repeated again, slower.

“Okay, I'm not a fucking child, you don't have to talk to me like that. And saying it slower doesn't mean I understand what you mean any more than I did. What do you mean my _story_?”

“Your story. Why are you here? Where did you come from? I want to know the Antoine Bitters story.”

“Quit saying my fucking name like-- God, okay, what are you doing. You don't give a shit about my _story_ ,” Bitters sneered, as though the word has wronged him. “Especially not enough to videotape it. What's this for?”

“It's for _history_ , Bitters! Imagine years from now, after we win the war, when people want to know-- _who were the Rebel soldiers? Who were the Feds? What were their stories?”_ Ghanoush moved his hands dramatically as he spoke, pointedly ignoring the skeptical look Bitters has been giving him since he started talking. “They'll want to know who we were, and I'll have those stories! People won't have to guess! Besides, I was a film major before everything blew up. I want to do _something_ with what I was learning.”

“...And instead of going to the captains or the leaders,” Bitters said slowly, “You came to _me._ ”

“Don't be full of yourself, you're not the only person I'm going to do this to. So come on, talk to me. What was your life like before you joined the Rebels?”

“Shit.”

“...Is that all you have to say?”

“Yep.”

“ _Bitters.”_

“Well, what the fuck do you want me to say? I had a shitty childhood that turned into a shitty… Teenager… Teenager-hood? Whatever, and then everything went to hell, and I didn't want to die, so here I am. The end,” Bitters finished, shaking his head.

“That's not your story,” Ghanoush says, and Bitters groans.

“What do you mean it's not my story? Of course it's my story-- it's _everyone's_ story.”

“That's what I mean. I don't want everyone's story, I want _yours_. Did you have any family? Siblings?”

“....Couple of brothers,” Bitters said, obviously uncomfortable. “Dude, I really don't want to--”

“What were their names?” Ghanoush wasn’t about to stop pressing for answers. “Tell me about them.”

For a long moment, he wasn’t sure if Bitters was going to answer at all. Bitters opened his mouth, closed it, and glanced down at the camera. “I really don't--” he started again, then sighed. “...Jared and Michael. Twins, four years older than me. ...They'd be 20 this year.” When Bitters finished speaking, his voice was quiet and pained.

Ghanoush nodded and matched Bitters’ tone. “Bitters, tell me your story.” Bitters glanced down at the camera one last time, took a deep, shaky breath, and started to speak.

“We-- Our parents abandoned us pretty young. I don't really remember them, but Michael does. ...Did. ...Does. We bounced around between shelters for a while before we, uh-- I did some stupid shit that, uh… Michael pulled us out of the one we were staying in when I was like 13 because they were having a really hard time pronouncing Antoine. Kept saying it like ‘Rachel’. Foreign names, you know?” Bitters gave a weak laugh and attempted a smile at Ghanoush, but let it drop when Ghanoush didn’t smile back.

“Anyways, we lived on the street for a while. Michael always talked about how important it was that we got an education, did something to get us out of where we were, so we all still went to school. Well-- they went to school. I-- I mean I was still in the books as going there, but I didn't go much because… I mean, someone has to get food. Stores look for stealing more closely when everyone's out of school. Jared liked that I did that, helped when he could. I don't think Michael liked it much-- he told me he didn't want me getting in trouble once, but he didn't really-- he knew we had to eat, you know? Feelings about stealing and stuff get rewritten pretty quick when you'll starve if you don't.

“So that was pretty much life for a while. Go to school a couple times a week, keep my brothers fed. I got pretty into spray painting for a while. Not tagging either, like, the artsy shit. I found someone who’d trade me spraypaint for-- for some other stuff. Jared would go with me sometimes, tell me what to paint, where to paint it. Shit, I must have painted half the city by the end of it all. If you lived in Cadence at the same time as I did and you ever walked down an alleyway, you probably saw something I did. That’s one of the things I don’t like about the Rebel base, it’s tough as hell to get spray paint here.” Bitters laughed again, genuinely this time. “Sorry, what was the question? I got kind of off topic there.”

“How did you end up with the Rebels?” Ghanoush prompted, and Bitters’ face fell immediately. After a long pause where Ghanoush wasn’t even certain Bitters would answer, he spoke up. “...Bitters, you don’t have to--”  
  
“No-- no, it’s okay. I can do this. I’ll be fine.” Bitters took a shaky, deep breath, and glanced down at the camera. He nodded, almost to himself, and started again. “So I mentioned I lived in Cadence. Do you remember back when the Rebels weren’t really around much, they were just little groups in every city, how scared the Feds were? And the Feds said they weren’t scared, sure, but I saw the attacks on my city when rebel shit started happening. That was fear. It’s _fear_ when you fucking--” Bitters breaks off, hands clenching into fists. “Fuck. Okay. So Cadence was… _heavy_ in rebel activity. There were a lot more of them there than in other cities, and the group in Cadence seemed like they had a pretty good leader. The Feds knew that most of the Rebels were high school kids, and that they were recruiting other kids. They--

“...I didn’t go to school that day. I fucking _should_ have, probably. I skipped because we needed food. Of course Michael went, and Jared didn’t really skip that often either. He always made fun of Michael for telling me not to skip, but I think he kind of thought that if he went to school he could make it somewhere? God, so they were there when the Feds-- When the Feds--

“...Cadence High was bombed,” Bitters finished quietly, not looking at either Ghanoush or the camera. He was choking up as he spoke, and coughed once to try to relieve the tightness in his throat. “By the time I got there and figured out what was going on, the Rebels were already there trying to help whoever had survived. I started digging too, because I-- I had to, you know? I had to find them. I had to know they were okay. It’s fucking funny, actually, Kimball was the one that found me first, tried to get me to leave back to the rescue ships. She probably doesn’t even remember it at this point, it was back when she was still a Lieutenant. So I stayed and dug people out. Soldiers made me leave eventually. I wasn’t able to move rubble and shit, they didn’t want another person getting hurt that didn’t have to. But if they were already hurt then what the _fuck_ was the point in--”

Bitters coughed again, keeping his eyes turned down and away from the camera and Ghanoush both. That didn’t stop Ghanoush from seeing how Bitters’ eyes had grown red. “So yeah. Tough to tell the people who saved your life, ‘thanks, but I think I’ll do fine for myself alone in a bombed city.’ And here I am. Told you my life was shit before I got here.”

“...Yeah. Well, thanks, Bitters.”

“What, that’s it? No more super invasive questions? You don’t wanna hear another _story_?”

“No. You’re done, it’s okay. Do you know where Captain Simmons is, though?”  
  
“Try the medbay. Or Grif’s bunk.”

“‘Kay. You put money on when they’ll get together yet?”

“...Ghanoush, dude, don’t act like we didn’t just do that whole story bullshit. You can’t just flip from that to acting like nothing happened.”

“...Right. Bye Bitters.”

“Later.”

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have developed backstories for every Chorus character, but I'd love to hear other people's! If you want to help me write a backstory for a certain character, I'd credit you in the notes for that chapter. If you have a suggestion for a character or a backstory you'd like to help me write, please message me on my tumblr, [nonbinarygrif!](http://nonbinarygrif.tumblr.com)


End file.
